T w e n t y S i d e d

As a follow-up to my suggestion on how to accommodate FPS fans like myself on the console, a reader sent in a link to this. It’s basically the left half of a Dual Shock controller, attached to a mousing surface. The right hand holds a mouse, which has the four buttons on the side, right under the thumb. The mouse buttons are actually R1 and R2.

Interesting.

My own observations on this:

1. First off, all of those wires need to go. They’re going to get in the way. It’s one thing when the mouse has the cord laying along the top of a desk or a keyboard drawer, it’s quite another when it’s coiled up in your lap.
2. The four buttons are reachable, but they’re also going to be prone to inadvertent pushing. Vigorous use is going to fatigue the thumb, because of the way it’s going to need to bend. They also seem to be crowded a bit to fit in the allotted space. Quicktime events are going to be harder. Obviously you won’t be using this thing to play a platforming game.
3. I’m not sure how well it’s going to work to have the mouse board on your lap like this. It’s not as stable as a desk, it’s not at the right height, and your hands are going to be close together. Will any of these changes lead to cramping or fatigue after half an hour? It’s hard to tell short of trying it yourself.
4. And of course, games must support a mouse for this to be of any use. I’m not sure how many games there are that fit that criteria. To a certain extent mice and trackballs suffer from a chicken-and-egg problem on the consoles. Nobody has them because games don’t support them, and games don’t support them because… etc. I think it would take a push from Sony to give this thing any traction. But they wisely spent their efforts on sixaxis instead. *Cough*.
5. While better than a mouse + keyboard, I’m still not sure this meets the “sitting on the couch with your buddies” test. Is this something you want in your lap? Something you want to pass around? Something you want to pay $50 for?

Even with my loathing for FPS gameplay using a thumbstick, I’m still not excited about this just yet. I’ll see if it catches on first. (Thus exacerbating the chicken / egg problem. If people like me don’t buy this thing, who will?)

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Many people have emailed me links to various sites talking about the lawsuit against EA over the DRM is Spore.

I don’t actually have much to say about it, because the sites I’ve read talk about the existence of the suit, not the nature of the thing itself. Does the plaintiff have a case? Will it hold up? Will EA even care or notice? Gosh. I dunno. Beats me.

In truth, I’d much rather EA just came to its senses and abandoned this nonsense, rather than trying to make them change their ways in court. The former is much more likely to lead to lasting, productive change.

Morally, she has a point: The customer should be made aware of SecuROM prior to purchase. I don’t object to EA’s right to make whatever idiotic software / DRM they like, but the customer needs to know what they’re getting into. But morality has only a loose connection to what goes on in civil suits.

We’ll see where this one goes.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Back in the 90’s, you could use the numpad for playing FPS games. I started using the numpad for gaming when Descent came out. The introduction of full 3-axis, 3-dimensional movement abruptly escalated the number of keys I needed under my hand. The numpad felt like a natural choice, because the keys are all lined up, so I didn’t have to hold my hand sideways. There is a nice edge on either side, so I wouldn’t get “lost” in the middle of the keyboard and end up pressing the wrong buttons. Later, the introduction of the infuriating Windows key made the choice even more advantageous.

But lately games are coming out where the numpad is crippled in various idiotic ways. Not because keyboards or interfaces have changed, but because… I dunno? It’s too hard? I’d think after a full day of writing new 3.0 pixels shaders for differed lighting passes and edge-smoothing techniques for dynamic shadows, they could wrap their heads around the profound challenge of those 17 buttons on the right side of the keyboard. In the interest of reducing the number of ways my games annoy me, here is a helpful guide for the game developers out there, who seem to be confused and bewildered by the bizarre contraption known as the numpad.

I shall impart this secret knowledge, now: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Mysterious Numpad”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Game companies are big on the idea that they’re just providing us with a “license”. Or lately, they’re trying to turn software into a “service”. The addition of the internet has made it possible for someone else to administrate your software. Setting aside the morality and legality of this deal, how do these various schemes work out? Assuming the user doesn’t resort to piracy, what’s expected of them, and what do they get in return?

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DRM: Power & Responsibility”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Chris’ survival Horror Quest has a brilliant post that examines the sales performance of PS2 games against their metacritic scores. He’s looking to see how much quality affects sales. He charted 1,281 games and shows us the breakdown in a number of very interesting graphs.

The only nitpick I have is that I’ve never thought scores were all that useful for determining quality. The way the review system works, a critic usually sits down and pushes through a game in less than a week and then hammers out a review. (And the whole system is a sham in the PC realm, where the reviewer is likely using a top-end PC and a review copy that might not have the DRM found in the retail version.) The process suffers from the same problem that movie reviews do, which is that the reviewers are voracious consumers of games, to the point where they make “hardcore” gamers seem “casual”. Add in the marketing “tilt” effected by big name publishers (which we caught a glimpse of in the firing of Jeff Gerstman) and you have a system where scores don’t have a lot to do with quality. I trust scores to filter out the really horrible stuff, but beyond that I rely on demos and word of mouth. I’ve seen many big-name, top-rated games that turned out to be “meh”, and I’ve seen some real gems that were given modest scores by critics.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Game Sales vs Game Quality”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.